Extras
by AmayaSora
Summary: Companion pieces to my longer story "Extraordinary." Deleted scenes, some character sketches, all written circa end-of-2010.
1. Ron and Hermione Part 1

**Hi there! If you found this through Extraordinary, yes you are in the right place! If you didn't, you're very welcome to stay and read too, however the pieces in this little collection are companions to that longer story. (I say companions; they are a mix of various things- deleted scenes, character studies- so it's the most apt term I could think of). I'll try to give background info about each one, so you have a little bit to go off of if you want to read them by themselves.**

**OK, so- This is a deleted scene, originally tacked on after Chapter 13 (at Malfoy Manor, when Harry accepts his feelings for Draco and stops fighting them). During the editing process I decided that switching to a Ron/Hermione viewpoint was distracting and kind of unnecessary. BUT I do think it gives a flair for the characters as I see them, and there's one really great line I'd like to brag about...**

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><p>"I don't understand it!" Ron cried, throwing up his hands. His wife smiled fondly but continued reading her book. "I left five messages, 'Mione. <em>Five<em>, and he hasn't returned any of them. That's not like him at all."

"What? Yes it is, Ron, you know he gets caught up in something and follows it to the exclusion of everything else. Besides, he's on_ holiday_. People don't like to be bothered on holiday."

"He wouldn't mind us! He's always there for _us_."

"I'm sure he's fine. We can always tell when he's getting in over his head."

"But what if he doesn't _know_ he's in trouble? What if he's bewitched, or-"

"Ron. Be reasonable. What has he done to even remotely suggest that?"

"Seriously? What about this random holiday, hmm? He just owled Robards for more time off; the man is pissed, Hermione! Harry loves the job, yet suddenly he's taking all this time off! That's not fishy at _all_. And," he said loudly, ignoring Hermione's pointed eye roll, "he went to the market before he left! George saw him. He doesn't cook, you know that. Yet he went to the market and bought all kinds of ingredients and stuff."

"Oh, no, _shopping_! Alert the authorities; our friend's possessed!"

"I'm serious, Hermione! I'm really worried."

Hermione sighed and stood up to place a hand on her husband's shoulder, stopping his pacing. "I know you are, and that's very sweet. But Harry is a grown man. He can take care of himself. Besides, what's going to happen to him on a countryside vacation?"

"You never know," said Ron darkly. "He's so trusting. Of everybody, 'Mione; it's like Dumbledore all over again. He's given everybody and their brother a second, third and fourth chance to hurt him, and eventually someone will, whether he's on holiday or not... I don't know what Malfoy was up to- still don't. But if I did... they can't be unconnected, Malfoy's plot and this vacation of Harry's."

Hermione frowned. Surely Ron didn't suspect… no, if he did he'd be infinitely more upset. "You act as if trusting is a bad thing! Look, maybe Harry _has_ been hurt before. But that makes it all the more remarkable he's able to trust anybody at all. For me, as long as he keeps that trust, that's how I know he's okay. Besides, he's a pretty good judge of people. You don't think he'd _really_ let Malfoy stay with him if he had any reason to suspect a sinister motive? I'm sorry, Ron, but I just can't see any plot where this makes sense... Harry knows what he's doing, trusting people. He chooses well."

"He chose well in _you_, at any rate," he said, deflating as the force of his rant extinguished. He turned to embrace his wife, placing a kiss on her forehead.

She beamed. "And in you. Harry knows how much we love him. He knows what it'd do to us if anything happened to him. He won't be the one to hurt us, Ron. He'll protect himself, if only to protect us."

Ron sighed. "Alright. I'll give him that. Just, 'Mione, the last time you saw him, he seemed fine, right?"

She thought back to the excited gleam in his eyes, the definite bounce in his step, and that irrepressible smile. "The last time I saw him, Ronald, he was deliriously happy."


	2. Ron and Hermione Part 2

**The second of the Ron/Hermione conversations I wrote for _Extraordinary. _This one is set after Chapter 19 and referenced in Chapter 21 (where you can find out what Hermione said). It's **right after Draco leaves; Ron still has no idea the relationship even existed, and Hermione is seeing Harry fall to pieces.**  
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><p>"You were right," Hermione whispered unhappily one night as she sat across from Ron, hands gripping a coffee mug tightly.<p>

"About what?" Ron said eagerly; it wasn't often he was right and his wife was wrong.

"About Harry and his trusting. It, it almost destroyed him."

"What d'you- he's alright, isn't he?" he asked, alarmed.

"I don't know, Ron! I don't know! Sometimes he seems alright, but other times there's just this sadness and heartache in his eyes."

"Ginny upset him that badly?" he asked weakly, frowning with concern.

"No, not Ginny, Ma- someone else."

"S-someone else? Since when, what about my sister?"

"Ronald, you know they are on a break, and as such Harry can date whomever he chooses. He just needs to choose _better!_" she added fiercely.

"Who did he choose, then?"

Hermione bit her lip. Her husband would not take this news well at all... maybe it would be better not to say anything. Harry didn't need an irate Ron in his face right now. "I don't know who it is, Harry didn't say. But the point is moot now; they've broken up."

"Well, can't he just go back to Ginny then? Solves everything."

"Ron, it's not that simple." Sometimes Ron's insensitivity surprised even her. Harry really loved Malfoy, truly loved him, and it was mutual. There was no reason at all for them to have broken it off, except stupid bloody Malfoy and his stupid bloody pride and _cowardice_. Of course, none of those thoughts made it out of her mouth, so Ron just stared at her, confused.

"'Mione? You look tense, love. Tell me; I want to help."

Looking into his kind, earnest face, she couldn't help but smile in spite of her mood. She reached across the table to grab his hand. "Thank you, Ron," she said softly. "But I'm not sure you can... I'm not sure _I_ can..."

"'Mione. You are brilliant with all this emotion stuff- well, everything, really, but especially this. And you _know_ Harry. You'll figure out what to say, I know you will. And, hey, if not, I can always take him over to the pub for a few pints. Loosen him right up."

"Ron!" she mock-scolded, ruined with the smile tugging at her face. Harry needed someone like Ron, who would do things that were entirely unnatural, would step outside the bounds of comfort to help him, like Ron had done; God knows how little tact he had, yet he still tried, because it was her. Because of his love. Harry needed this selfless love, this risk-taking love; the man gave it to everyone else, multiple times.

It wasn't the trusting or even the loving that gave him trouble; it wasn't anything to do with him. And he deserved the best, someone who gave the same extraordinary kind of love that he did, so he could be strengthened by it just as Hermione, Ron, and probably Malfoy had been.

She smiled even wider. Harry would get through this. She'd make sure of it. Because now, she had a plan. Now, she knew what to say.


	3. Cygnet

**Switching gears a little bit. This is a character study of Draco as a teenager, working through a bit of what his life would have been like. Also, to kind of get a feel for why he makes the choice he does in Chapter 18.**

**Fun fact: This was originally part of _another_ fic, Underneath it All, which is a drabble collection. In the end I didn't include it because there's nothing Drarry about it so it wouldn't fit in a _Drarry_ drabble collection.**

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><p>The surface of the lake is calm, smooth as the glass of a mirror, he thinks, and promptly hurls a stone into its depths. The ripples expand outward, little waves coming ashore with the gentlest touch on his bare toes.<p>

His stone startled a flock of geese, and they take off in a cacophony of sound, loud and repellant. Yet _free. _Soaring away, letting the wind guide them, breaking formation whenever they want to to form a new one (a better one?) His eyes, stormy grey and sad, follow them as they rise, touching the sun.

When the flock is but a speck on the horizon, he sighs and drags his gaze back down to the lake. It's perfectly flat again, uninteresting. He idly snatches a cattail and twirls it between his fingers; he'd never really noticed how many shades of brown could be seen: one for each minute degree of light. A small smile pulls at his lips, but his eyes stray beyond the treasure in his hand.

Two glorious swans, proud and majestic, process past. Their black feathers lie perfectly smooth and sleek, not a whit out of place. Dignity and propriety pronounce every movement. It looks effortless; he knows that is far from true.

Then, a little grey cygnet pokes its head out of the grass on the opposite shore. The down has not yet fully receded, nor has the adult coat grown in; he's a mottled mess. He turns a little circle in the water, wonderingly. Shifting his folded wings, he begins a zig-zag path, to and fro, where ever he wishes to be.

His mother deigns to break her stride to look back at him; the father parades right on. She calls, softly, and the cygnet abruptly returns to his place, floating sedately at the end of the line. Yet the boy sees the little cygnet's head droop a bit, the feathers fluff in silent defiance. But it keeps right on going, demurely. He has a duty, after all.

Desperate eyes follow the cygnet, begging for it to _go for it, _to try, to trailblaze, to do _anything _to ignite the fire behind those almost-burnt out coals of stormy grey. Silently pleading.

The boy's mother calls him back to the house, and he heaves himself up from the ground, shoves his feet in his shoes. He's halfway across the lawn before he realizes his shirt is untucked; one glance behind him shows the cygnet paddling in its parent's wake.

He sighs, again, and carefully tucks his shirt in, cleans off his hands, straightens his back. The fire in his eyes dims by one more shade, smoke obscuring the storm clouds.


	4. Astoria on Love

**This is an Astoria character study! Because we don't get much (technically we get nothing) about her in the books, I had to do something to get a handle on her character as I was writing it for this fic. So, this is a first-person narrative account detailing her perspective on events mentioned in Chapters 18-20.**

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><p>I didn't even know what love was. Sure, I'd read the books, seen the couples at the park and by the beach, in the halls, but they don't tell you anything valuable.<p>

I saw him in the shop that day, and Father told me it was love, that swooping feeling in my chest, that fluttering. Of course, he said this only after the boy- man, really- told me his name and I relayed the information back. Before then he just scowled in displeasure as I talked.

Father knows best, so it had to be love... didn't it? Why would he lie? Later, I'd realize that "lying" and "exaggerating" are entirely different things, and the latter doesn't bother your conscience nearly as much.

So, when you loved someone, you married them. That's what the books say, anyway. And what Father said, and who was I to question? I'm just a young girl, eighteen, fresh out of school, and he was my father. So I got married.

He cried during the ceremony. Draco did, I mean, not my father. Father doesn't believe in crying. But Draco had a steady stream of tears pouring out of his eyes, eyes that were dull and grey, not the flashing, dancing silver of happiness I'd been so enthralled by in the shop. There was less light, somehow.

I wondered if perhaps he didn't love me like I loved him. Maybe there was someone else? But he wouldn't marry _me_ if that was the case. You married the one you loved... right?

I thought, briefly, that maybe he _did_ love someone else, some other girl, but then he turned to me and smiled, and his eyes were the glowing, swirling silver of that first day, not the dull dead grey. It was a beautiful smile, light and happy.

I saw it again years later, when he looked at our son, a tiny baby wrapped in soft blue sheets. That beautific smile, and a flash of that old spark. Scorpius would heal him, Scorpius would make him happy. I may not have known what love was, yet, but I could recognize happiness, and my husband didn't have it.

Why was he unhappy? I tried to do everything I was supposed to- laugh at his jokes, caress his cheeks, kiss his tears away. And it worked sometimes, I guess. For a while, at least. But it was odd; he disliked his birthday and Christmas and the entire month of February. And somedays I swore he _hated_ our anniversary.

Scorpius helped, I suppose. Most days, anyway. But July 31 was never a good day, ever; he was always miserable that day, that glorious summer day. Mother warned me that some people never recover from war. She thinks Draco is one of those people. Yet I knew I saw him happy, once, two whole years after the final battle.

One day, he dropped his newspaper abruptly and stood up, rigid, and stalked from the room. "Astoria," his soft voice called, and I crossed to the den to stand by his side.

He pulled me into a hug, nice and tight. I felt his ribs shudder against mine as he silently sobbed, "I'm sorry," he whispered over and over again, stroking my long brown hair. "I'm so sorry."

So was I.


	5. Ron on Change

**Oh, Ronald.**

**Much like the previous drabble, this isn't really a part of the story, but helped with characterization, getting Ron's voice right. He's musing about change here. If I had to place it, I'd say it would be immediately after Ron and Harry have dinner at Grimmauld Place in Chapter 6.  
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**So, enjoy.**

**-AmayaSora**

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><p>People don't change. I mean, once you're you, you're you, you know? Nothing doing, no way around it. People don't change.<p>

Well, George did, of course... no, he really didn't. He lost half of himself, see, and it just happened to be the cheery, fun half. Bummer, mate. Really.

Percy changed, too. No, what am I saying, he's still a pompous prat. He still won't tell any jokes... dunno if I would either, considering... But he's not any different than he was, just toned down a bit. Yeah, that's its, he's toned down. Less intense.

'Mione told me I've changed. But she was joking; I was immature, a right git sometimes even, but I've grown out of it. Growing up and changing are different. They have to be. They are...

People don't change... do they?


End file.
